


What Dies Inside Us (While We Live)

by rosewiththorns



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Birthday, Detroit Red Wings, Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Tricks, fathers, grieving process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4747346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewiththorns/pseuds/rosewiththorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Nik's birthday, and he misses his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Dies Inside Us (While We Live)

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This story is set during the 2006-2007 season. Nik’s father really did die of a heart attack on his eleventh birthday. As always, Pavel’s accent is done to the best of my limited abilities. With the Swedish, I’ve used some to try to create an authentic feel, but I didn’t want to overwhelm readers with excessive words they wouldn’t be familiar with (and besides the more Swedish I use, the more likely I’ll mess some of it up). I’ve tried to make the meaning of these words understandable via context clues, but below is a short list of the Swedish I borrowed in order of appearance for this story for easy reference: 
> 
> Pappa- Dad  
> Son-Son (I love cognates, don’t you?)   
> Nej-No  
> Mamma-Mom  
> Hej-Hi  
> Grattis pa fodelsedagen- Happy birthday  
> Ja-Yes  
> Jag alskar dig-I love you  
> Hej da- Goodbye

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”—Norman Cousins

What Dies Inside Us (While We Live) 

In his dream (or maybe it wasn’t a dream so much as a memory), Nik was a five-year-old again, stubby legs still pudgy with baby fat churning like rowboat oars as he raced through the carpeted living room of his family’s Stockholm apartment. Behind him, he could hear his pappa’s heavy footsteps and breathing hot as dog panting on his heels. Ten seconds later—Nik remembered being proud that even under duress he could count that high—Pappa had scooped him up and carried him over to sit on his lap on the nearest lounge chair.

“You’re not supposed to sit after running, Pappa.” Nik was smug as a cat with a mouse as he shared what his coaches had taught him. “Bad for the heart.” 

Dismissing this pearl of wisdom as he did so many health gems, Pappa outstretched a palm and ordered Nik to relinquish the object that had fueled the frantic chase, “Give me back my tie, son.” 

“Nej.” Stubborn as a brick, Nik shook his head and clung to the tie with fingers sticky from sweat mingled with the residue of the juice he’d had while waiting for his pappa to come home from work for the evening. 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Chuckling, Pappa began to tickle Nik under the armpits. 

With a high-pitched squeal reminiscent of a wounded pig’s, Nik dropped the tie, protesting, “No fair, Pappa.” 

“Tickling is my secret weapon.” Pappa ruffled Nik’s hair and then deposited him on the floor. “I have to finish changing. Go see if Mamma needs any help setting the table for dinner.” 

A sharp, ringing sound interrupted Nik’s dream (or possibly memory). Struggling to emerge from his sleepy fog, Nik fumbled instinctively for the hotel alarm clock he had set last night for a few seconds before it occurred to him that the noise was coming from a phone. About to pick up the hotel’s receiver to groggily inform the concierge that the wake-up call had gone to the wrong room because he hadn’t asked for one (and only a teammate who wanted to get hammered against the boards in practice would dare request one on his behalf as a prank), Nik recognized the sound as his new ringtone. 

Making a mental note to change it again since this one was too obnoxious especially at this early hour, Nik’s fingers scrambled across the nightstand until they clutched his cell. Glancing at the glowing screen, Nik saw that his mamma was calling him probably to ensure that she could be the first one to wish him a happy birthday. 

“Hej, Mamma.” Nik tried to overcome his drowsiness enough to inject some semblance of enthusiasm into his greeting. 

“Grattis pa fodelsedagen!” exclaimed Mamma with enough volume to be heard in Norway, and Nik was grateful he had the foresight to hold his cell away from his ear, since he knew that his mamma always overdid the excitement in this birthday well-wish as though to make it clear that the fact her husband had died of a heart attack on this date when Nik turned eleven in no way diminished her delight in the anniversary of his existence. 

No matter what she said or did, though, Nik could never celebrate his birth without remembering how it had felt to see the life ebb in Pappa’s eyes as his heart stopped beating. Sometimes he would allow himself to drift into a fantasy world where he still had a pappa to talk to—not just on his birthday but every other day on the calendar—but that never softened the ache he felt when reality—that he was fatherless—set back in to make his own heart feel crushed as a tin can that had recently emerged from a trash compactor. 

“Got any plans for your big day, Nik?” Mamma pressed when Nik remained silent as a tombstone. 

“Not really, Mamma.” Technically, there was a team breakfast Babcock had organized for Father’s Weekend, which had to be on the anniversary of his pappa’s death because the universe had a warped sense of humor where his life was concerned, but Nik was planning on skipping it. One of the advantages of being awakened this early by his mamma’s phone call was that he could raid the buffet table and then sneak outside before most of the team had shown up with their dads, so he wouldn’t have to suffer too much of a reminder that he no longer had one. 

“Well, maybe your teammates have a surprise planned for you,” suggested Mamma. 

“Ja, they’ll certainly have a surprise shaving cream pie in the face for me, at any rate.” Nik’s cheeks split in a wry grin. 

“I meant a party or a present.” Mamma laughed. “Jag alskar dig, Nik.” 

As it usually did when he heard this endearment, Nik’s face flamed, but since he loved her too, he answered honestly, “Jag alskar dig, Mamma. Hej da.” 

Once she had echoed his farewell, Nik hung up the phone and switched off the alarm that he wouldn’t need thanks to his mamma’s obsession with being the first to wish him a happy birthday. Then he rolled out of bed, rummaged around in his suitcase for jeans and a hoodie with the Red Wings logo emblazoned on it since he figured he should display some team spirit even if he wasn’t going to attend the breakfast with everybody else, and pulled on these clothes. After brushing his teeth and hair, Nik slid into his sneakers and exited his hotel room, locking the door behind him. 

Wishing for probably the seven millionth time since his pappa died that he had been born on one of the other three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year, Nik walked down the corridor until he reached the elevator bank, where Nick Lidstrom was already waiting for a downward elevator to arrive if the glowing down arrow was any indicator. 

“Morning.” Nik always felt that the “good” part contained a cruel challenge to people who, like him, weren’t exactly the early birds who wanted to be out hunting worms, so out of consideration for their sensibilities (which were so easily offended before noon), he rarely included it. 

“Good morning.” Nick nodded a greeting. “Headed down to the breakfast?” 

“Hoping to raid the buffet before most of the team and their dads show up, actually.” As Nik confided his dastardly plan, the elevator materialized with a heraldic ding, and the two of them entered. 

“Come on, Kronner.” Nick pressed the button for the lobby level. “Don’t be a stranger on your birthday.” 

“I’m not in the mood for a team dinner today.” Nik’s stomach lurched, and he blamed it on the elevator starting to drop, and definitely not on any emotions that might have been whirling through him like a tempest. “Not when everyone except me will have a father there.” 

“Not everyone except you will have a father there,” corrected Nick, as interested in accuracy as ever. “Pav won’t. His dad died of a heart attack two years ago now. Remember?” 

“Of course I remember,” Nik snapped, because he had a practically photographic memory for those who had also lost a loved one to a heart attack. “I’m not a goddamn goldfish, Nick.” 

“I know, and my first clue was that a goldfish would have better manners than you, Kronner.” Nick nudged him in the ribs before adding more soberly, “Why don’t you speak to Pav over breakfast? I’m sure he’d understand what you’re going through…” 

“No, he wouldn’t.” Nik shook his head while the elevator came to a halt and opened onto the lobby with its silk drapes and upholstered furniture. “Have you seen those icons he keeps in his locker? He absolutely is one of those people who believe that the dead—or at least the dead who were good when they were alive—go to heaven, and that kind of talk almost always makes me want to plug my ears.” 

“Because you don’t believe it?” Nick arched an eyebrow as they stepped onto the lobby’s marble floor.

“It’s not so simple as believing or not believing in heaven.” Nik sighed, moving with Nick through the entrance to the private dining room Babcock had arranged for them to eat breakfast in. “Some days I believe—or maybe just want to believe—there is a heaven, and Pappa is waiting for me there. Sometimes I could even swear that I think I can feel him watching over me. Other times, I feel that he really has left me forever, because how can I believe in heaven when I saw his eyes go empty and cold when he died? Wouldn’t his eyes show something when he died if there was a heaven he had gone to? Nobody can really know that there is a heaven, so anyone who speaks about it as if it were some sort of certainty is just telling a fairy tale with the typical unbelievable happily ever after ending.” 

“To be fair to Pav, I doubt he claims to know anything,” pointed out Nick, as they approached the buffet table, which was so laden with food and drink that it was a marvel it hadn’t collapsed. “That’s probably why he calls it his faith, you know.” 

Unable to invent a decent response to this observation on-the-spot, Nik pretended to be consumed with examining the impressive array of foods and beverages covering every inch of the mahogany buffet table. There were sizzling platters of scrambled eggs, steaming stacks of bacon and sausages, mountains of toast beside jars of jam and marmalade, massive plates of danishes, gigantic baskets of fresh fruit, big bowls of yogurt and granola, and—best of all in Nik’s opinion—almost overflowing tureens of oatmeal. Laid out beside this feast were pitchers containing a variety of juices as well as two urns filled with coffee and tea. 

“Oatmeal is heaven on earth,” Nik said to conclude this theological discussion on an appropriately irreverent note, dumping three heaping ladles of oatmeal into a bowl.

“Your love for oatmeal crosses the line into creepy.” Since it wasn’t his family that had a history of heart problems, Nick piled slices of bacon onto his plate. “If oatmeal didn’t exist, you’d probably starve.” 

Nik thought rather morbidly that if oatmeal didn’t exist, his odds of dying of a heart attack would be much greater, because oatmeal was one of the few heart healthy foods that actually stuck to the ribs. Oatmeal was a very trustworthy food, because would that Quaker with the traffic cone hat really lie to anybody about oatmeal being good for the heart? 

“I’m going to eat outside.” Hearing the chatter of teammates appearing in the lobby with their dads in tow, Nik grabbed an orange and dry toast—no butter for him, because that was an invitation for cardiac arrest to arrive at a latter date—before heading toward the French doors that opened onto a terrace mercifully shoveled of snow and ice. “Catch you later, Nick.” 

“See you around, Kronner,” Nick called across the dining room as Nik slid open the French doors and stepped out onto the patio. 

Afraid that he would feel too much like a loser if he sat down to eat at one of the glass tables all by himself, he settled himself on the far wall, where he hoped that he would be out of sight and mind of his teammates. Figuring that he would wait for his oatmeal to cool down a bit before he ate it, Nik peeled his orange and plopped a segment into his mouth, appreciating the tang as it popped on his tongue. 

When he was halfway through his orange, a flock of the ubiquitous pigeons that seemed to inhabit every city in America landed on the wall beside him. Normally he would have flapped his arms in an effort to trick them into believing that a larger bird was shooing them away, but perhaps his birthday made him more magnanimous, since he tore his toast into strips and scattered it for the pigeons to eat. 

In less than a minute, the birds had gobbled up every crumb. When they stared at him with oddly pleading expressions in their beady eyes, Nik shook his head and informed them, “I got nothing else for you guys. You should migrate to greener pastures.” 

As if they understood English, the pigeons hopped off the wall to peck under the tables. When this search returned no food because Nik was probably the first hotel guest to eat on this patio in at least a month (a thought that only made him feel a further disconnect from humanity as a whole), the birds launched themselves into the air to find a better breakfast than the one Nik had provided for them. 

He had finished his orange and was diving into his oatmeal when another living creature—much less welcome than the birds—stepped onto the terrace from the dining room. It was Mike Babcock, and judging by the slam of the French doors, he was in a typical towering temper with Nik as the only target for the rage within eyesight. 

“What the hell are you doing out here, Kronwall?” snarled Babcock in lieu of any morning greeting, storming across the patio to glare at Nik in a way that froze the blood in his veins more than the frigid weather had. Even in mid-winter, Babcock could drop the temperature to arctic levels just by scowling. 

“Eating, Babs.” Nik scraped his spoon around his bowl in emphasis before shoving another bite of oatmeal into his mouth. 

“Don’t be a smart ass.” Babcock’s eyes were flint. “Come inside now before you freeze your smart ass off.” 

“No, thank you.” Nik made no move to rise from the wall, hoping Babcock was like a bear who could be fooled if you played dead. “I’d prefer to stay out here.” 

“I don’t give a shit what you’d prefer.” The flint in Babcock’s gaze ignited, which was always a danger sign, Nik noted nervously. “That was an order, Kronwall, not a fucking suggestion.” 

“I’m not going in, Babs.” With all the bravery he could muster on such short notice, Nik lifted his chin. “I’m eating out here.” 

“You seem to be harboring under the delusion that this breakfast is optional.” Babcock’s deceptively quiet voice was somehow more terrifying than a shout would have been. “It isn’t. Now get a move on.” 

“I don’t have a father here.” Attempting to reason with an irate Mike Babcock usually ended about as well as waving a red flag in front of a seething bull, but Nik supposed it was worth a shot. “That being the case, I don’t see why I should have to go.” 

“Did you see it listed as optional on the schedule, Kronwall?” Babcock was in fine form this morning, that was for sure. No doubt he would be throwing rocks at kittens and kicking puppies before noon at this rate. “No. That’s because you’re expected to attend with or without your dad.” 

“That’s not fair, damn it!” His blood boiling despite the cold, Nik squashed the temptation to fling a spoonful of oatmeal at his coach. Not having a father was crappy enough without having that soul-killing fact rubbed into his nose on a day that happened to be both his birthday and the anniversary of his pappa’s death. That was a torture—worse than having your bleeding heart ripped out while you were alive and watching somebody else eat it— he wouldn’t even wish on his worst enemy. Then again, maybe that had happened to Babcock. It was the best explanation for him being such a heartless bastard. “You don’t have a right to expect that of me or anyone else!” 

“I’m being perfectly fair.” Babcock’s arms folded across his chest. “Sweden is far away, but there are these new inventions called planes that you might have heard of.” 

“Not for my father.” Nik figured that if Babcock was going to assume he had a father, he deserved a sharp shock of finding out that he didn’t. “He’s not in Sweden. He’s dead.” 

There was an audible intake of breath from Babcock before he sat down next to Nik on the wall and asked in a suddenly mild manner, “Since when, Kronner?” 

Taking the return of his nickname as a sign that Babcock was thawing, Nik muttered, “Since I was eleven. Today’s the anniversary of his death, so I don’t feel like doing much of anything.” 

“It’s most important to do things when you don’t feel like doing them.” Not relenting half as much as Nik had hoped, Babcock swatted Nik’s shoulder. “Your dad would want you to attend this breakfast.” 

“You don’t know what he would’ve wanted,” accused Nik, twisting away from Babcock, since he was not in the mood to be touched. “It’s not like you ever met him, and if you had, you wouldn’t know him from a bum on the street, so don’t act like you have a clue what he would’ve wanted me to do.” 

“Fine.” Babcock was the only man Nik had ever encountered who could concede a point and still sound as if he had won an argument. “I want you to attend, and you’ll do that if you have any idea what’s good for you. Am I clear enough for you now, Kronner?” 

“I’ll go.” Nik decided to try to copy Babcock’s approach of seeming to give up ground without actually abandoning any. “Once I’m done with my oatmeal, Babs.” 

He could nurse the oatmeal until the stupid breakfast was over if he had to, after all. 

“You’re done with it now.” Babcock wrenched the bowl out of Nik’s hand and chucked it into the likely otherwise empty trash can standing a few feet away from them in the corner of the terrace. 

“Hey, go easy on the oatmeal!” protested Nik, jumping to his feet because he was so appalled by this waste of a perfectly good meal that starving children in Kenya would have begged to be served. “It hasn’t hurt you.” 

Unmoved by the plight of the oatmeal that had been unceremoniously tossed into the garbage like a rotten egg, Babcock remarked curtly, “Get back in the dining hall where you’re supposed to be, and you can have another three bowls of oatmeal if you’d like.” 

When Nik, trying to devise a method of getting his oatmeal without going into the dining room, remained motionless too long for his coach’s taste, Babcock propelled him forward with a slap on the butt that was forceful enough to sting through denim. 

Mentally calling Babcock a collection of nasty names of which asshole was the kindest, Nik yelped, “What the fuck was that, Babs?” 

“Think of it as birthday spanking, Kronner.” Babcock yanked open the French doors and pushed Nik inside by the shoulders. 

“You remembered it’s my birthday, Coach?” gasped Nik, cocking his head as he gaped up at his coach. 

“Obviously.” Babcock snorted before striding off to bestow more joy on other fortuitous individuals. “Consider the oatmeal your present from me.” 

Figuring that he would help himself to more of his gift, Nik crossed over to the buffet table to get another bowl of oatmeal. As he ladled some, Pavel sidled up to him and folded one of the hotel’s cloth napkins into an uncanny imitation of Babcock’s angry face: complete with cheek crags and frowning chin. 

This startled a laugh from Nik, who barely managed to croak out, “Careful, Pav. If Babs sees that, he’ll bag skate you for a week or do something worse if his sick mind can come up with it.” 

“I not say if you not.” Pavel winked and pressed a finger to his lips. “Keep this hush-hush like he KGB.” 

“You have no survival instincts.” Rolling his eyes, Nik rumpled the napkin into a more innocuous pose. “I can’t believe I have to save you from yourself.” 

“What you need is laugh.” Pavel elbowed Nik. “Then you not so much miss your father.” 

“Last night I dreamed that I was a kid again, and he was chasing me. With my eyes closed, it all seemed so real, but it wasn’t. I miss him so much it hurts like being fucked in the ass with a knife probably does.” Nik grasped his oatmeal bowl so tightly that his knuckles became white as ebony, wondering if for the remainder of his life he would be cursed with these days where he would feel such brokenness because he didn’t have a pappa anymore, and if it would be a worse punishment to forget what it had been like to feel whole with his pappa’s arms wrapped around him like a fortress. “It’s my birthday, and I’d give up every gift I’ve ever received or will ever get to speak to him just one more time. More than anything, I wish I could take just one more sunset walk with him.” 

“I miss my father, too.” Pavel fiddled with the cross that he always wore, which Nik recognized for the first time wasn’t exactly a Crucifix, because a risen Christ, rather than a crucified one, hung from it. “I feel same way as you.” 

“Don’t you believe he’s in heaven?” Nik’s forehead furrowed. 

“Yes.” Pavel nodded and murmured, “But I not. I a step from heaven, Kronner.” 

“Me too.” Nik supposed that the only difference between him and Pavel was that Pavel had faith that one day he would reach heaven, while Nik believed that this life was probably the closest to heaven any of them would ever come, but that seemed all the more reason to try to laugh as much as possible. Nudging Pavel’s shoulder, he asked, “So, can you work any more magical imitations with that napkin, huh?”


End file.
